Archive for November, 2008

Have you ever seen or experienced the traditional rites that are carried out in a Japanese funeral? Talking about death and thinking about the prospect of death can be a bit depressing, but hopefully you’ll still get something educational out of this post. Before the funeral takes place, the relatives of the dead place six coins…

Today is a day of pride for parents who have three, five or seven year old girls or boys. Every year on the 15th of November, children ages 3, 5, and 7 celebrate a rite of passage on the Shichi-Go-San (七五三) festival. Shichi (七) means seven in Japanese, while go (五) = five and accordingly san…

Kyoodo ryoori (郷土料理) translates to “regional specialities” in English. By “specialities” I mean a dish or cuisine that a particular region in Japan is famous for; and in which tourists flock to the region to try out the local cuisine. Every month or so I plan on highlighting a particular region with the food they…

Ocha (おちゃ) is the Japanese word for tea. Japanese tea is important to the Japanese culture. It serves many important functions. Sometimes ocha (おちゃ) is served for the purpose of relaxation, sometimes for ceremony, and at other times it can serve as a source of treatment for one’s health. There are many different kinds of tea…

The Japanese language is called a “shallow” language. (At least that’s what the linguists call it.) It’s labeled as “shallow” because words and letters are pronounced as how they are written. If we compare the way Japanese words are pronounced to the way English words are pronounced, you’ll find that English is a “deep” language. …